Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to a water treatment apparatus and a water treatment method using the same, and particularly, to a water treatment apparatus and method for clumping foreign materials included in raw water.
Description of Related Art
In general, a physical, chemical water treatment method includes a clumping-precipitating-filtering process, a clumping-floating-filtering process, or the like, and here, the clumping process is a process of growing fine colloid particles floating in raw water to flocs, a grain having a size sufficient for precipitation and filtering. In the clumping process, a cohesive agent for promoting colloid particles to be clumped into flocs is applied to raw water, and a blending process is performed to allow the cohesive agent to be evenly mixed with the raw water. The blending process requires a flocculator including an impeller provided therein. In addition, raw water including flocs of foreign materials in the flocculator is transferred to a membrane filtering device by a pump.
In the water treatment method as described above, a degree of clumping of foreign materials in raw water significantly affects filtering efficiency of the membrane filtering device. Namely, as higher degrees of clumping are obtained, a usage mount of cohesive agent and a recovery rate of raw water in the membrane filtering device can be increased. However, although flocs are grown sufficiently in the flocculator or a settling tank, a recovery rate in the membrane filtering device may not be satisfactory in certain situations. In order to solve this problem, a method of increasing a usage amount of cohesive agent may be considered; however, this leads to an increase in cost.
In addition, since additional facilities such as a mixing tank, a flocculator, or a settling tank are required, an installation place is restricted and cost for construction is increased.